Ordering in for Shabbos

HANC and Rambam students help feed Houston after storm

By Mayer Fertig

Issue of Sept. 26, 2008

Preparations for Shabbos traditionally begin on Tuesday, so Dr. Ron Moses, an ear-nose-throat specialist in Houston, was right on schedule last week when he realized that in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike there was no kosher meat, chicken or fish to be had in the entire city, and no improvement was likely before Shabbos.

“A lot of the supermarkets had lost power, all the meat and cheese was gone, Shabbos was coming and nobody was going to have anything to eat,” Moses said.

The rebbetzin of his Conservative shul, Congregation Brith Shalom, had ordered in the past from Mauzone Food Service, based in Woodside, Queens, and he knew that the company was able to ship kosher food long distances packed in dry ice.

“I called and asked if they could do large orders and they said, ‘how large?’ Moses said, laughing.

After some quick phone calls to three or four Orthodox shuls, the local Chabad and to the Jewish Federation, the answer turned out to be Shabbos meals for 1,250 families –– roughly 6,000 people.

“When I called Mauzone back, of course they thought I was a bit of a crazy person, for which I don’t blame them.”

At first, “we said no,” admitted Alan Shulman, one of Mauzone’s owners. “It was Tuesday afternoon. It would have had to be made overnight and shipped and we couldn’t figure out how to do it.”

But then he had a change of heart.

“My partners [David Itzkowitz and Morton Strauss] and I thought about it and realized that when things happened in New York others came through,” and they should do likewise and just figure out a way to make it all happen.

But convincing Mauzone turned out to be easy. Shulman was willing to turn his busy commissary upside down at the last minute, if need be, to make sure Houston had food for Shabbos, but, obviously, somebody was going to have to pay for it –– to the tune of $68,750.

“That was a very interesting conversation between me and my credit card company,” Moses said. “It took a little while, and I told them an honest story: I was trying to buy kosher meals for Houston. I got up to a senior accounts manager and they realized that there are exceptions, and they approved it.”

Moses knew he wouldn’t have to foot the bill alone. The Federation offered $20,000 and several of the Orthodox shuls each pledged $10,000 apiece. The food was ultimately sold to individual families for $30 a box.

Two other challenges that Shulman had to meet and master involved packaging and transportation: who was going to pack up 1,250 boxes of chicken and kugel and all the trimmings.

“We physically didn’t have enough personnel,” said Shulman, “and how on earth was all that food going to get to Texas in time for Shabbos?

The first part was easier. Shulman called Renee Friedman at Rambam Mesivta, and Berel Eckstein, a board member at the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County High School (HANC), for help.

“The HANC basketball teams –– girls and boys –– go to Houston every year for a tournament, so the teams have a relationship with the Houston Jewish community,” said Eckstein, an oil trader from West Hempstead.

“They stay there for Shabbos, and daven in the shuls, and that’s why when I heard of it I contacted Rabbi Stavsky,”

His daughter, Rebecca Eckstein, and her friends, Liz Eisenman and Jillian Koegel, helped round up volunteers. In the end, even some family members of Rambam Mesivta students were among the volunteers who showed up to help.

As for the shipping, a company in Lawrence agreed to commit an 18-wheeler and a tag team of two drivers to make the trip.

The tedious process of assembling the packages –– two types of prepared chicken, two kugels, three salads, a bag of rolls and a cake –– began at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday evening.

“By 5:00 in the morning we had 1,250 boxes on pallets ready for shipment. Afterward, thinking about it, it was quite an accomplishment,” Shulman said.

The truck was loaded by shortly after 10:00 a.m. and arrived in Houston more than thirty hours later, just hours before Shabbos.

“People were basically pretty nervous,” Moses said.

When the truck finally arrived, a forklift was there to unload the 22 pallets of food.

“It was a beautiful scene, seeing all these Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Jews together,” Moses said.

Several hundred meals that were left over were given to Chabad and to a Jewish home for seniors, and to a Houston food bank serving the broader population that was desperate for donations, so that “it really ended up being a beautiful project to help not just the Jewish community but the broader Houston community.”

Moses praised Mauzone for going the extra mile, and then going even further to make sure chickens suitable for Chabad were included. One thousand boxes had Empire chickens, procured at literally the last moment; 250 specially labeled boxes contained chicken with a Lubavitch hechsher from Rubashkin.

“The biggest thing for me, honestly? While I feel very lucky that I initiated the project, it was really a tremendous community effort,” said Moses. “We are very blessed in Houston.”